


A House in The Country

by ClapYourHandsYo



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Artist Huang Ren Jun, Daydreaming, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Self-Indulgent, Sharing a Bed, Strangers to Lovers, Writer Na Jaemin, bc i can, idk what fake universe this is in but it makes me happy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:40:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27830164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClapYourHandsYo/pseuds/ClapYourHandsYo
Summary: A young writer happens upon a little house in the countryside and it just so happens that he needs a place to stay.- I’m bad at summaries, but I swear it’s not that boring. -
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun/Na Jaemin
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	1. After a Long Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before anyone asks, I literally don’t know what time period this is, it’s absolutely not an accurate historical era, it’s just my brains fantasy world that I love dearly.

The wind blows quietly through the tall grass, filling the air with a peaceful rustling. The sun joins the wind in setting the tone, coloring the air a soft golden. This scene stretches for miles, covering the rolling hills.

This is where Na Jaemin finds himself, wandering through the countryside. Fortunately for him, he spots a fairly nice house a little ways off. He hadn’t really planned on going anywhere specific, so he had ended up in the middle of nowhere. Don’t get him wrong, it’s nice and all, but there’s absolutely nowhere to go when night hits and the closest town is hours away.

He makes his way over to the home and knocks on the door, preparing his most charismatic face for the proposition he’s about to make. A few seconds later, a man appearing about the same age as him opens the door.

“Can I help you?” the man asks. It’s pretty clear from the look on his face that he doesn’t get many guests.

“Maybe. You see, I’ve ended up kind of in the middle of nowhere and I don’t really have anywhere around here to stay so...” Jaemin started, expecting the man to take pity on him and let him in.

“And how does that concern me exactly?” _Well, okay then._

“Well, I was thinking since I happened upon your house here, you could let me stay.” Jaemin clarified. He assumes the man already knew what he wanted, but some people are actually that dense.

“And why, exactly, would I just let a random guy who wandered up out of nowhere stay in my house?” The other man asks.

“Because you realise that it’s starting to get cold out and you wouldn’t want this dear, innocent stranger getting sick? In all seriousness though, I will gladly pay you to let me stay here for the night.”

“Hmm... that’s fine, I guess, but just know that I only have one bed, so you get to sleep on the couch.” The man responds, retreating back into his house, presumably waiting for Jaemin to follow him.

“Better than sleeping on the road, so I’ll take it.”

The man leads him over to the only couch in room. The house looks fairly clean and quaint. There are little plants scattered about alongside a few paintings that looked far too nice to casually display in ones living room. As Jaemin is admiring the room, the man speaks up again.

“If you’re going to stay here, I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Renjun.” Renjun says, hoping to draw Jaemin’s attention from the room. It’s not like it’s in any state of disarray or anything, but it’s rare to have guests, so Renjun is a bit self conscious about his house. 

“I’m Jaemin.” he responds after a few seconds “your house looks really nice, I used to live in one pretty similar, well it was in the city, but the inside was similar.”

“I couldn’t stand that, there’s too many people in the city and too much noise all the time.” Renjun says, taking a seat on the couch beside them. “Actually I lived in the city most of my life, I only move out here about a two years ago. What about you? What kind of place do you normally stay in?” he asks, suddenly curios as to why this stranger was wandering around this late in the evening.

“I don’t usually _stay_ anywhere. I mostly just travel around these days.” Jaemin joined Renjun on the couch, dropping the bag he was previously carrying to the side.

“Why exactly?”

“I had a house in the city, the one I mentioned a minute ago, but I just got tired of seeing the same old things, so I left.” Jaemin starts the practiced explanation he’s given probably a thousand times now. “You see, I’m a writer. I like seeing new things, experiencing new things, and you can’t really do that when you’re stuck in a run down city that just runs through the same routine year after year.” 

“You could’ve just moved to a different town, you know.” 

“I could’ve, but where’s the fun in that? Also, after a while it would’ve become the same as the old town. It would’ve lost whatever peaked my interest and I’d be left with nothing to inspire me once again.”

“If you look at things that way, why bother doing anything?” Renjun responds quite harshly. 

“What do you mean?” Jaemin can definitely say he’s never gotten that kind of reply before. 

“You’re already dismissing years of experiences and happiness you could have before they could even happen. Yes, things will change over times, but you could still enjoy the time between the changes. Realistically, you’re missing out on a lot more by just stopping in places for a while and not staying. You miss the people and the little places only locals know about, you miss everything of real value in a town.” 

“Hmm, no ones ever given me that response before, so points for originality,” Jaemin starts again “but it’s not like I don’t meet people and do different things while I’m in these places. Like, I know plenty of people who live in these little far off towns, I don’t just go there and ignore everything. Also, finding places to stay in the same way I did this evening kind of requires me to know people around there.”

“From the sounds of it, you don’t ‘know people’, you run into people and speak to them while you spend the night at their house, that’s not really knowing someone.” 

“I have _real, actual_ friends, Renjun. I don’t ignore everyone and I don’t always stay just for a day, and I don’t really like abandoning people like that either. Even if I don’t stay physically, I still drop by when I’m near them and I write plenty of letters.” 

It’s easy for Renjun to tell that he struck a nerve, so he just hums in acknowledgement and gives Jaemin a second to calm back down before responding properly.

“I don’t think I could ever live that way.” Renjun says, it isn’t much, but he feels like it’s all that needs to be said on the matter now. After all, this man is just a stranger and he’ll be gone again before he knows it.


	2. The Weather has Other Plans

_“I don’t think I could ever live that way.” Renjun says, it isn’t much, but he feels like it’s all that needs to be said on the matter for now. After all, this man is just a stranger and he’ll be gone again before you know it._

“If you don’t mind, I think I’ll go to bed for the night. The bathroom is over there and you’re welcome to anything in the kitchen.” Renjun says, figuring the man doesn’t need a proper tour since he’s only staying for the night.

“Go ahead, this is your house after all.” Jaemin replies. He can’t say he’s really anywhere near tired now, not after talking to Renjun.

For the first time in what feels like ages, Jaemin reaches into his bag and pulls out a notebook. It’s nothing really formal, just a place for him to jot down ideas until he can’t write properly again. Of course, he hasn’t had enough ideas to write anything formally for the longest time, so there’s no real need for him to bring the right materials usually. But today is different.

He pulls out a pen and starts writing about the scenery outside in the fields surrounding Renjun’s house. Then about the beautiful man who lives in this quaint house in the country, and then about his great desire to live a quiet life alongside this stranger. Of course the last part isn’t true, sometimes you just write in the mindset of your character, you know? Jaemin continues on like this for what must be hours, eventually falling asleep on the couch, journal still in hand and head still full of ideas.

When he wakes again, he’s met with dim light and wonders if he woke up before the morning. This idea is quickly discarded, however, when he hears a distant rumble of thunder. _Great,_ he thinks, _perfect walking weather._

He looks to the journal in his hand, looks like he fell asleep midway through writing a sentence. As he’s trying to remember where he was going with it, Renjun steps into the room, yawning. He’s still wearing the clothes he slept in and looks barely awake. It’s very... cute? Jaemin immediately shakes his head after that thought. Write now, admire people later.

“Good morning, hope the couch wasn’t too uncomfortable to sleep on.” Renjun comments, walking past Jaemin and straight to the kitchen. “Do you want any coffee? I usually don’t make it because I don’t drink that much but-”

“Absolutely” Jaemin interrupts. _Coffee, maybe that’ll help me figure out where I was going here,_ he thinks. He hasn’t had any in a while because he doesn’t like asking for too much when he stays somewhere, but Renjun offered, so he’s sure not going to turn him down.

He can hear Renjun laughing at his quick response from the kitchen, he seems much more easygoing than he had the night before. _Maybe he’s just not awake yet._

“I see you’ve been writing, hows it going?” Renjun asks, joining Jaemin on his couch.

“Well, I think it's okay. _I was_ half asleep when I wrote most of it though, so I’ll definitely have to change some things.” Jaemin looks down and already sees a number of words in the wrong place and misspelled. _Well, at least I got something down._

“What’s it about?”

“Uh...” Jaemin isn’t sure how specific he should be here. From what he remembers writing last night, it’s very clear that it’s about Renjun and how different he seemed from other people he’s met while wandering around. “It’s about some of the people I’ve met.” he decides to just leave it there.

“That’s fair, I’m sure you’ve encountered a lot of interesting people traveling around.” Renjun gets back up and goes to the kitchen again, where the coffee has just finished. “Do you want anything in your coffee?”

“No, I think I’ll drink it black today.”

Renjun brings him his coffee and they both enjoy the silence together for a few moments. Just Jaemin fixing his writing mistakes and Renjun slowly waking up properly. After a bit of this, Renjun breaks the silence.

“So, what are you planning to do today? The weather definitely isn’t fit for walking all the way to the next town.”

“I was hoping it would clear up, but from the looks of things I don’t know if it will. Maybe I’ll stay another night. If it’s alright with you of course.” Jaemin adds, not looking up from his journal.

“Well, I’d rather you not get sick and die because I wouldn’t let you stay, so you’re welcome to.” _Also it’s kind of nice to talk to someone for once,_ Renjun chooses to keep that one as a thought.

After he’s finished his coffee, Renjun walks to his room to retrieve a sketchbook, then returns to the couch beside Jaemin. It takes a minute for Jaemin to even notice Renjun moved in the first, but when he does, he starts the conversation back up.

“You draw?”

“I do, but right now I’m just trying to sketch out a few ideas for a painting for my friend. He got hired by a pretty big company recently, so I’m giving him a painting as a congratulations.”

“What company?”

“Some entertainment company that I’ve never heard of, but he seemed excited so I was too.” Renjun says with a smile, he doesn’t have many friends, but the ones he has are very important to him.

“Maybe he knows one of my friends, Mark, he works as a musician in the next town over from here. He isn’t super well known yet, but I’m pretty confident he will be some day.” Jaemin comments, still adding to his story.

“Mark? I think I’ve heard Ten mention someone named Mark, might be the same person.” Renjun is just kind of guessing on that one, there are a lot of people named Mark, but you never know.

“Anyways, do you usually paint outside of making gifts?” Jaemin asks, getting quite tired of working on his own project again.

“I do, actually that’s how I make most of my money. A couple of the paintings hung up in here are mine and the rest were made by Ten.”

Jaemin takes a moment to further inspect the paintings hung up around the room. They range from realistic landscapes to full blown surrealism. All of them are of ridiculously good quality and he begins to wonder how some people have this much talent.

“I like them. I don’t understand how people can possibly paint in this much detail. I could probably spend a whole day and not be able to draw a stick figure right.” Jaemin laughs at himself.

“Yeah, but I feel the same about writing. I can barely even talk without messing up, I definitely can’t write stories. I’m just a mess when it comes to words.” Renjun says, finishing up his sketch.

“I doubt that, you sounded pretty damn convincing when you were talking to me last night.” Jaemin responds. In honesty, what Renjun said had gotten to him a little too much to be reasonable, but he wouldn’t ever admit that out loud.

“That was a rare occurrence.”

“Maybe it was, but so is me writing a perfect sounding sentence, so I feel like you could manage writing just fine, in all honesty. It would just take practice.”

“I’d say the same about you with painting.”

Their conversation continued on for a while, discussing what they’re good and bad at, what they think of the other, etc. By the time that there was a lull in the conversation, the sun had already reached its peak and began to set again for the day.

“Alright, I’m going to try to make dinner, but I can’t promise you it’ll be good.” Renjun announces, somewhat concerning Jaemin.

"That doesn't sound great, no offense."

"Well, it's the best you've got unless you're going to cook." Renjun is already heading to the kitchen at this point and fully accepting that whatever he cooks, it will not in any way be good. That's just how his luck runs.

"I mean I will. I'm not some great chef either, but I can at least cook better than you from the sound of it." Jaemin joins Renjun in his kitchen. 

He looks around to find that he doesn't have much to work with. _Well, you already claimed to be better at this than him, so you better figure something out._

"I don't believe that you actually know what you're doing." Renjun interrupts his thought process .

"Sure I do, you can just go back to your art stuff and I'll handle this."

"Good luck, scream if you set things on fire." Renjun returns to his living room, hoping that Jaemin won't take that last part as an invitation to actually burn his poor kitchen up.

Thirty minutes later and Jaemin has actually managed to get the situation together well. He's standing at the stove, peering out the window and daydreaming up a situation in which he's doing pretty much the same thing he's doing now. Only in his daydream, the sky is a lot less grey and the airs a bit warmer. There are kids playing in the fields and a husband in some state of peace in the living room. In his ideal daydream world, he's telling said husband to get the kids in for dinner and- _g_ _uess my real dream in life is being a stereotypical housewife._ Well, everyone has unrealistic dreams sometimes, he guesses. Before he can properly stop daydreaming and think straight, he calls out for Renjun to tell him the food is ready. 

"Honey, dinners ready." _And now you'll never be able to live this down._ Okay, so maybe snapping himself right back to a reality where a cool guy is portraying the exact role his daydream husband just was wasn't a great idea. Well, at least if Renjun mentions it he can probably play it off as a joke or something.

"Honey? Not feeling too at home here are you?" Renjun laughs.

"Apparently I am." He laughs back, only his laugh is a bit less heartfelt. No matter how strong the desire to wander the world by himself is, there will always be a desire to have some idealistic, domestic life too and this place just happens to be bringing that one out more.

Time passes quickly as they eat dinner and joke together about Jaemin getting too comfortable too quick. Soon enough, its night again. The rain is still falling outside and there's no sign of that changing, so Jaemin feels justified in staying. He does not, however, feel very justified in what happens next.

"You know, it's pretty cold tonight." he says.

"Is it?"

"It is, I would love to have somewhere to sleep that's warmer." He knows full well that what he's doing is unreasonable and that, if he were in Renjun's place, he would absolutely turn the guy down. Well, if the guy was handsome enough he might not, so actually maybe he has a chance here.

"Are you asking what I think you are?" Renjun looks at him with a look he can't quite read.

"If you think I'm asking to share your bed with you then yes, you are."

"Why would I say yes to that?"

"Why would you say no?"

"There's a very long list of reasons why and I feel like I shouldn't have to explain them to you." Renjun gets up and heads towards his bedroom, which he presumably won't invite Jaemin into.

"Wait" Jaemin internally debates how he's going to convince this near stranger to agree to this. "I'm not used to sleeping alone. I can't sleep if I'm by myself."

"You slept just fine last night. Also, aren't you always travelling places? There's no way you're used to sleeping with someone." Renjun argues.

"I... sleep with a lot of guys." While this isn't untrue, it may not have been the best convincing argument in this situation. "I know that does not at all help me here, but seriously all I'm trying to do is sleep with you. In the other, not at all sexual way." Jaemin fumbles over his words. For a writer he's doing pretty bad with the whole use of language today.

"I- honestly whatever, I really don't have the energy to do this tonight. I'm going to bed and you can join if you want, I guess." Renjun heads into his bedrooms and leaves Jaemin on the sofa, truly amazed that that worked.

_Alright, now just go to bed and don't embarrass yourself anymore for the day._

**Author's Note:**

> Y’all this fic is absolutely me just enjoying the fantasy world my brain has created.


End file.
